A thread about the Denis Villeneuve-helmed reboot of DUNE

Well I mean that's one thing Villeneuve got right (and that Lynch probably didn't have the opportunity to change): two hours is an insufficient timespan in which to adapt the book.

I forget who said it somewhere the other day but if you come to the table assuming that NO adaptation will ever truly be successful -- which I agree with for a variety of reasons, the book itself really resists an easy boiling down thanks to its various digressions, the internal monologues as noted, even the framing of each chapter with a Maud'Dib quote or anecdote essentially -- then you can enjoy each attempt for where it succeeds and rightfully criticize it for where it doesn't. Lynch's pluses and minuses as noted, the miniseries version has its virtues, etc.

it's not a truly successful adaptation of dune unless the princess irulan teleports in every five minutes and reads a paragraph from one of her many identical books

i've never seen any of the long versions of the lynch film. i saw the movie first as a kid and was completely entranced by it and mystified by what was happening. when i read the novel later on i was surprised that the 'weirding module' wasn't there. it's hard to represent herbert's ideas of intense human refinement and conditioning (the BG's voice, yueh's ethical blocks, the mentats) so i wonder what this film will do differently.

i watched the lynch movie recently on HBO and all the weirdness and oddball glamour was still there but yeah it is a very brief accounting of the plot and not much more. the turn of paul being lost in the desert to being the savior-leader of the fremen is really rushed -- but my memory of the book is not great, maybe it's all too convenient there too. it's too bad lynch doesn't like the movie so much. he has such a great eye for beautiful and ugly faces; it'd be nice to get a lavish official re-ish of it. oh well.

i'm not really sold on chalamet, who seems a bit too young and too west coast in his voice -- maclachlan sounded very preppy waspy. i thought villeneuve's blade runner sequel was in the end kind of pointless. but it was pretty! and he can do thriller action well, which isn't really lynch's thing

the turn of paul being lost in the desert to being the savior-leader of the fremen is really rushed -- but my memory of the book is not great, maybe it's all too convenient there too

it spends a good amount of time on his early days with the fremen, but his ascent from respected member of the sietch to god-warrior-king literally happens between books 2 and 3, with a multi-year time gap

between books 2 and 3

sorry, to be clear i mean "Book Two: Muad'dib" and "Book Three: The Prophet," both of which are divisions of the original book entitled Dune

hoping for a set-piece of gurney halleck playing the baliset in this one and the sequel tbrr

wonder how josh brolin's voice is

Hey man Patrick Stewart just let the music speak for himself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuBSvNtlAq8

Also I want an oral history of just that scene.

I think it's important to remember that Paul Atreides is 15 in the first book.

yeah that's one of the reasons why i don't mind the chalamet casting. he's seems to have the dicaprio-esque boyishness that he'll retain until he inevitably attempts to grow facial hair.

It's also interesting to note the Chalamet and MacLachlan were approximately the same age at the time of filming.

oh damn that scene has an important moment from the book, kynes spitting on the floor!

xpost Wow, that sure doesn't make any goddamn sense in my brain.

LOLed at Patrick Stewart's performance of that little closing flourish at 0:37 in that clip

is jean luc playing jizz there?

Love the fact that it's a modded Chapman Stick.

I hope the banquet scene is finally included (Lynch filmed it but it was one of the removed scenes).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPWsicTgAis

https://i.imgur.com/p7WGbYg.jpg

BTW, a pdf of the Dune Encyclopedia is available on L1br@ry G3n3s1s

Chalamet looks like a young fey Michael Imperioli in this

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ehlws5nWAAIlr-t?format=jpg&name=large

New Dune trailer looks amazing pic.twitter.com/I8OlkUpxOm

— Beyond The Ninety (@IntoExtraTime) September 9, 2020

FASTER FACE-DANCER! KILL!! KILL!!

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/dune-trailer-pink-floyd-eclipse-streams-1058400/
"On Spotify — where “Eclipse” streams were up 54 percent on a whole — Eclipse witnessed an 86 percent influx of users listening to the track for the first time on September 9th."

such a weird non-story unless you include numbers of spins and not percentages. If it got 10k spins for the month and now gets 20k spins... big deal?

"digital sales of the song soared 1,750 percent" sounds good but what was the starting number? Did it sell even 100 copies this year prior to the trailer?

GLENNNNNNNN

Villeneuve is...not happy

https://variety.com/2020/film/news/dune-denis-villeneuve-blasts-warner-bros-1234851270/

I wonder how these deals work if certain parties were to take home a percentage of the box office

It was crime at the time
But the laws, we changed 'em
Though the hero for hire's
Forever the same one

What do these guys think the alternative is? Saying “everything’s gonna be back to normal next October” is... not true?

Yeah, I get why they're annoyed but, like, get in line. I'm annoyed or upset or angry every day for reasons other than "my $200 million movie has been delayed and dumped on a premium streaming service and maybe because of that I won't get to make more $200 sequels." One thing that doesn't make me annoyed? If I want to see his "Dune," I don't have to wait (at least) another year. Hopefully things will be better in a year, and by "better" I mean a hundred things before I mean movie theaters are back open again.

I don’t really know what kind of honest response from the guy you’d like to hear about this? Not unreasonable.

Alan Smithee redux?

I mean yeah, tiny violins for big time movie directors, but it’s not like he’s downplaying the pandemic, just the erratic and confusing handling of a big time passion project that’s 1/2 of a whole and the performance of that first half determines if a second half is made. Anyone would be lying through their teeth if they were all “Yeah, totally cool” about it. Doubt he’d be upset about delaying it further if October theater going was still unworkable.

i wouldn't say that getting to see the first dune movie early is a win if the endgame is that no one funds the second one

he's one of a lot of people arguing that this could be the beginning of the end of the financial model by which large-scale movies are made, which is kind of a big deal

He’s arguing that Warner bros should give it a theatrical release in October which... there’s just no universe where this movie comes out in October and makes $350m.

a lot of people arguing that this could be the beginning of the end of the financial model by which large-scale movies are made

I think it would depend entirely on whether that model has only been disrupted temporarily, causing massive capital losses that are tied to a social conditions that will eventually change back to something resembling 2019, or if the changes are permanent and irreversible. If only temporary, then there are still billions of dollars a year to be made by a resumption of large-scale movies. No studio will walk away from those kinds of profits. At present nothing that might replace that pre-virus model looks as lucrative as it was.

He’s arguing that Warner bros should give it a theatrical release in October which... there’s just no universe where this movie comes out in October and makes $350m.

I honestly don't understand why there is any expectation this would necessarily do any better than Blade Runner 2049, even in the best of circumstances. I think that movie ended up doing OK, but it wasn't exactly a galvanizing event film.

Then again, looks Denis Villeneuve is eying a "Cleopatra" film next, so clearly making things anyone wants to see is not a real priority of his.

He’s arguing that Warner bros should give it a theatrical release in October

I'm confused, isn't that still happening? The current plan is a simultaneous release in theatres and HBO Max. I think Villeneuve's saying it should be theatres only, but he's arguing as though it won't be shown in theatres at all.

I *think* he's partly arguing that by October 2021 things will be back to normal and the collective theatrical experience will resume, so he wanted to stick with that rescheduled release date. Which ... who knows what even next week will bring at this rate. But then there's this:

Warner Bros.’ decision means “Dune” won’t have the chance to perform financially in order to be viable and piracy will ultimately triumph.

I dunno, I think he's (again, rightly) mostly pissed at having been taken by surprise by this corporate-minded decision. Because I'm with Soderbergh and others in thinking that until there's a streaming service that enables a single movie to bring in a billion dollars, then studios will be more than happy to stick with the theatrical model. Now, smaller movies might have more trouble than ever in the post-Covid era, but that's as much the problem with too-big-to-fail $200 million franchises themselves, in which case Villeneuve (or Nolan, et al.) isn't exactly helping the cause.

I honestly don't understand why there is any expectation this would necessarily do any better than Blade Runner 2049, even in the best of circumstances. I think that movie ended up doing OK, but it wasn't exactly a galvanizing event film.

Then again, looks Denis Villeneuve is eying a "Cleopatra" film next, so clearly making things anyone wants to see is not a real priority of his.

Since we're Roku people and are not going to go see anything in a theater until the vaccine is widespread among the general populace, I'm with Villenueve here. I was hoping this would be a cool date night movie to see with my wife on a nice big screen and instead it's going to be a fart in a hurricane like every other big tentpole released during quarantine. Fuck Warner.

You might be able to get hbo max on a computer and screen mirror?

Or... I could just tell AT&T to eat shit

I'm confused, isn't that still happening? The current plan is a simultaneous release in theatres and HBO Max. I think Villeneuve's saying it should be theatres only, but he's arguing as though it won't be shown in theatres at all.

His argument is about getting the second one made - by dual releasing it in October, the box office numbers are going to be smaller than they would otherwise be, because HBOMax revenue just for Dune isn't really quantifiable (and given studio shenanigans they will almost certainly downplay its value there). His fear that it will be treated as a flop which will then mean there's no Dune II: The Duning.

xp in my way, you at least get to see the movie. it doesn't feel as good, though.

It does, does it?

An Official Poster Banner of DUNE. pic.twitter.com/vVGmZ1xBa6

— ⊃∪∩⪽ (@DuneNews) July 19, 2021

Also IMAX trailer or something in the next couple of days.

:D